


It's all just keeping score...

by LouiseC



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Epic Bromance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 20:02:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6871399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LouiseC/pseuds/LouiseC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve's about to face the toughest fight of his life, saved only by an offer from Danny that he really wishes he could refuse.  </p><p>**Inspired by behind the scenes photos and interviews for the season 6 final, so bear that in mind if you haven't seen it.**</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's all just keeping score...

**Author's Note:**

> I know this is a long note, but it helps set the context for where this piece came from: 
> 
> So, about a month ago, the BTS photos of Steve all shot up and one line in an interview from Lenkov went *ping* in my head and I got this totally crazy idea. SO crazy. Show would never go there. I asked a friend if I was crazy and she said no. She said I should do it. So I did it. #poorsteve  
> Then Bon Jovi happened and it all came together. I found myself driving down the highway at 100km/hr, tears streaming down my face. Listen to What do you got? (the title is a line from it) as soon as you can. It's an amazing song. No really. Go. Now.
> 
> Hand to God (and with my beta and cheerleader as witnesses) finished this 12 hours before the episode aired. I really can't believe they actually freaking went there!!! 
> 
> Kind of. 
> 
> I was close. ish... 
> 
> I deliberately haven't changed anything to better reflect what actually happened in the story, hence I describe this as 'inspired by' the SF. 
> 
> It's not a coda, since it was written before the episode.  
> It's not meant to be a 'fix it' but I hope that if you were annoyed by parts of the episode, it might soothe it a little. 
> 
> It's my own imaginings and I am so pleased to be officially NOT crazy! Well not about this anyway...
> 
> Technical stuff: I researched as much as I could. The recovery times etc are the best that I can work out, as well as the medication, treatment and legal stuff. I know people will question their continued employment prospects, but conversations with friends in the Navy and also google have left me very hopeful. My story reflects this. 
> 
> I have to thank Lyndalanz for her beta checking as I emailed pages through two at a time, usually full of sleep deprived typos. I also have to thank Stellarmeadow for not telling me I was insane in the first instance! 
> 
> I would love feedback and thoughts, especially since I have not written anything for a very. long. time. and when I started writing this, it was pretty far out there on the impossible scale. Little did I know...

“Detective?” Dr. Kalani shakes the shoulder of the man he has got to know well in the last week, but gets no response. He hates to wake him, he knows that he’s hardly slept for the last few days and suspects that he’s only showered or eaten because his friends badgered him into it. He knows that they’re devastated too, but that it is this man in front of him who has borne and will continue to carry the weight of their new world on his shoulders. Nevertheless, he needs to talk to him so the doctor tries again, louder this time. “Danny!”

“Mmm, I’m just…” the gears seem to click suddenly into place and Danny jerks awake, sitting upright from his awkward slump in the chair. “Steve?” 

“He’s starting to come around,” Dr. Kalani confirms. 

“How’s he doing?” It figures that his stubborn partner chooses to wake up one of the few times Danny leaves the room. He had a bit of a headache this morning and needed to get away from the constant drone of the medical equipment. 

“His fever is coming down nicely and we’ve got options to consider.”

Danny nods. They’ve been over all the ‘options’ dozens of times whilst his partner lay sleeping for a week. 

“We’ll go through all that when he’s up to it,” the doctor continues. “At first he might be too confused and disoriented to be thinking about more than the immediate.” 

Danny thinks they’re underestimating Steve a bit, but he also remembers the advice, warnings really, from the various medical staff, counselors and shrinks that have been through Steve’s room this week. Which is weird because Steve’s been unconscious the whole time. It’s like Danny has become a pseudo outpatient as they did everything possible to prepare him for what was to come. 

“Danny?”

“Right. Yeah.” Danny drags a hand through is hair and stretches the kink out of his spine, relishing the pop and wondering how long he actually slept this time. 

“Are you ready for this?”

“No.” There’s no point in lying. He doubts anyone is ever ready for the conversation he’s about to have with his best friend, and one of the people he loves most in the world. 

“Do you want me to…”

Danny cuts the doctor off. “No. I’ll do it. I… want is not the right word, God I don’t want to do this at all. But I need to. It needs to be me. He’s going to be…I just need…” He has no fucking idea what he needs. A time machine would be good, to go back eight days, to before everything changed. He sucks in a breath and swallows heavily. 

“I’ll give you a minute,” Dr. Kalani rests a hand on his shoulder. 

He hates this part and after fifteen years as a specialist, it never gets any less painful to see people, families, go through this ordeal. This case might be even worse, because it’s all so unexpected. His experience tells him that the man in front of him is a breath away from losing it and needs time to gather himself. 

“Let me get you some water and we’ll go in together, just like we planned, okay, Danny?” 

Danny nods and feels the waft of air as the other man walks away, giving him some semblance of privacy in the busyness of the hospital. He’s grateful for it, as he takes a few more steeling breaths and tries to prepare himself. Like there’s any preparing for this. How the hell do you tell someone that despite all his training and experience, his superpowers have failed and that this time, there’s not a pill or a cast in the world that can make him better? 

* * *  
_Eight days ago…_

_The smells of the rainforest assault his senses as he slaps another insect off his forearm, despite the thick layer of repellant he’d sprayed on before they set off. At this point he’s not sure who’s made more of the welts, him with the swatting or the goddamned bugs with the biting. But it makes him feel like he’s in control of something as they traipse through the never-ending trunks and vines, rotting leaves rank beneath their heavy, booted feet._

_The worst part, and he makes a mental note to never, ever admit this to anyone, is that he can’t even complain about it as they go because it will completely blow their cover. Usually he’d be mouthing off about every insect, rock and stick that has offended him and Steve would be shaking his head and laughing at his city-slicker ways. This time, they’re deep under and supposed to hardly know each other and besides which, Steve’s probably enjoying his little stroll through the jungle. They’ve got the trifecta of McGarrett happiness: bad guys, guns and nature. This is his idea of a fun day out. The bastard._

_“Oh, come on!” Danny mutters angrily as yet another branch springs past the back of the bad guy in front of him and hits him in the chest. He’s just about decided he can’t take it any more and he’s going to say something to the inconsiderate ass when the guy in the lead stops. The rest of the group spread out as they reach where he’s leaning on a tree trunk, drinking from a canteen that’s definitely seen better days._

_“We stop here ‘till dark,” he says, lighting up a cigarette._

_Out of the corner of his eye, Danny sees Steve scowl minutely in judgment. If he didn’t know the other man so well he’d have missed it so he’s not worried about the others seeing. Still, even Mr. New Jersey knows not to smoke when you’re trying to remain undetected in the forest._

_In the end it seems that the undetected part is not so much of a priority, what with the way the others spread around the area and setting their packs down, chatting amongst themselves. So much for the covert, stealthy approach they were expecting. He hopes the group, and the leader in particular, make many similar mistakes as the operation continues and that the bust is easier than the goddamned hike in was._

_Danny drops his pack and slouches back against a tree himself, sighing as he hits uselessly at yet another bug._

_“Here,” a pair of booted feet stop in front of him and Danny squints against the late afternoon light coming in through the canopy. The man in the boots drops a can of insect repellant at Danny’s side and shrugs. “Some of us are tastier than others I guess,” he says in solidarity. Got to be prepared out here.”_

_“Thanks,” Danny pops the lid off the can and sprays generously over all the exposed parts of his body. He wonders briefly if Chin’s good enough on the satellite imagery to pick up the toxic cloud that surely surrounds him now. If only… Danny hands the can back to the other guy and extends a hand. “Dan.”_

_“Mike,” the other guy shakes with a strong, intimidating grip for someone who looks like he’d be 150 soaking wet. Then again Danny himself doesn’t look like he’s much of a threat so he knows better than to make assumptions._

_“You’re new,” Mike squats and regards Danny with the suspicion of the unknown._

_Danny shrugs. “Everyone’s new once, right?” he tries for casual, hoping to build something resembling a rapport with Mike and get more intel for the way the rest of the drug transfer goes. It’s the only part of the operation they’d failed to get solid information about when they did recon for the case._

_“Guess so,” Mike looks across the group and Danny realizes that he’s looking at Steve. “Don’t usually get two newbies on the same run though.”_

_Well crap. Time to break out the back-story they cooked up. “I wouldn’t know,” Danny shrugs again, going for ‘defeated’ and ‘here because I have to be’. “I just go where I’m told. You owe someone a certain amount and you got to pay it back however they tell you to pay it back. Bug bites thrown in for free, apparently. You know how it is, man.”_

_“I know it,” Mike nods. “Worth it, though when we get our cut.”_

_Danny offers the bad guy a drink from his water bottle and presses a little more. “Yeah, about that. They usually do that down where we unload the boat or…” he knows the answer, they’ve got pretty solid details on the tail end of the operation but there isn’t any harm in trying for more._

_“Nah, back on Oahu in a few days. After it’s all been distributed.”_

_“They won’t just keep it for themselves?” Danny asks, concern furrowing his brow._

_Mike buys it. “Nah. I mean, maybe they don’t split it fair, who knows. But if they screw us over, whose gonna come back and do their dirty work next time, y’know?”_

_“Right.”_

_“I mean, except when you’ve got no choice,” he alludes to the reason ‘Dan’ is there. “Once it’s all on the plane, the pilots take off and the rest of us hired muscle get to go back on foot and back on the boat we came on.”_

_“Oh, man I was hoping you wouldn’t say that,” Danny slaps at another bug, to make the point._

_The rest of the afternoon passes with shallow small talk, no personal details that would identify the crew members to each other afterwards. As the sun sets, the lead guy hoists his pack and gives the order to move out. Everyone falls into line behind him again, but this time, Danny manages to snake in front of the goon who kept whacking branches back at him. He considers it a small victory._

__

 

* * * 

Dr. Kalani returns and as he stands up, Danny tries to smooth some of the creases out of the front of his pants. He has no idea why he does it; Steve’s sure as hell not going to care. He drinks the water that the doctor offers and lets it steel him for what they’re about to do. 

“Ready?” 

Danny nods and pushes the button to open the electric door to Steve’s room. Even though he’s been in there more hours than not over the past week, he still has a moment of disbelief every time he sees his partner lying there, so still. Steve is still pale under the usual Hawaiian glow that comes from so many hours spent in the ocean and outdoors in general. The many cords, tubes and cables that snake their way out from under Steve’s covers and into various machines have kept their steady rhythm of beeps and whirring, eerily settling during the times that Danny slept in a chair along side his unconscious partner. 

When he enters this time, Danny pauses for an entirely different reason. Somehow, the paleness of his skin makes the unpredictable colour of Steve’s ever-changing eyes stand out even more than usual. Danny’s never been so glad to play the guessing game than in this moment, when he’s honestly not been sure if he’d ever see them again. Just thinking about it, he almost loses all his resolve and his knees go weak, as if every cell in his body is torn between attaching themselves to that bed or running scared for the nearest mountains. 

Except he knows he could never leave. Would never leave, not when his partner is like this. Not when he’s facing the toughest decision and battle of his less than easy life. Not when Steve’s looking at him the way he is right now, like he’s got a thousand questions and Danny is the only one with the answers. He sits down in the hard, uncomfortable chair that has been his home for the last week.

“Danno?” Steve’s brow creases and he swallows, voice husky from disuse. A wince and a groan and he takes in his surroundings. 

“Hey,” Danny smiles and slides his hand under Steve’s much larger one, in a well-practised maneuver that avoids the IV and oxygen monitor that’s clipped on. As far as things to say to someone you love that you thought was going to die, it’s not great but exhaustion and worry and gut churning fear have taken their toll. 

“What…” Steve swallows again. He focuses past Danny but can’t see the usual salmon pink pitcher and cup waiting. Usually, and he’s sure that it is bad that he has a usually for this situation, Danny would be right there with a cup or some ice chips. Instead, he sees his partner glance at the other man who came in with him, a doctor judging by his coat, who shakes his head minutely. 

Danny nods and picks up a plastic dish with some kind of clamp and gauze held in it, which Steve only realizes is wet when it touches his lips. 

“Open up,” Danny commands gently and Steve complies, too confused to question it. The coolness is welcome on his tongue and he swallows a little easier but it’s gone all too soon as Danny gently wipes the cloth over his lips again before putting the clamp and tray back down. Steve gets the feeling its not the first time he’s done it. 

“You can’t drink anything yet, okay?” Danny explains. “You…” his voice catches and he stops. 

“Commander McGarrett,” the doctor jumps in with a professional smile, “I’m Dr. Kalani. It’s good to finally meet you offically.” He stands at the foot of the bed and rests a hand on the end rail. “Do you know where you are?”

“Hospital,” Steve nods. “How long?” he directs his question not back to the doctor but Danny. 

“A week.”

The shock on Steve’s face is clear. He was not expecting to hear that. 

Danny squeezes his hand gently. “Do you remember what happened?”

“Uh,” Steve frowns. “Maybe?” 

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“We were undercover?” he asks, although he’s almost certain he’s right. 

“Right.”

“And, I don’t know it’s like a movie I haven’t seen for a long time.”

The doctor nods, “Some memory loss is expected, don’t let it worry you.”

“It was going to plan,” Steve recalls. “But then we got made and there was shooting and… were we on a plane?”

“Yeah,” Danny nods. 

“Did we crash?” Steve looks his partner over but can’t see any serious injuries and he’s not in a hospital bed so he counts that as a win. 

“We, not so much…” Danny looks shifty. “Let’s just say, I literally made an impression on Waikiki beach.” This is good. This is them, being normal. Steve’s alert and aware. _“No apparent deficits”_ Danny’s mind provides, crossing one thing off the long, long list of things he has to worry about. But he knows he’s just stalling.

“No way.”

“Yup.”

“ _You_. Landed a _plane_.”

“Jealous, babe?” Danny grins.

Steve shakes his head. “Pissed that I missed it.”

“Oh don’t worry, it’s all on YouTube.” The thing is though, Danny’d had to leave and throw up when Grace showed him on her phone, seeing Steve being pulled from the plane, looking for all the world like he was dead. She hasn’t mentioned it since but he knows it made international news, what with all the tourists filming the accident on their cell phones and cameras. 

“I’ve really been out for a _week_?”

“Yeah.” And just like that, the good mood is broken. 

Steve can tell instantly that something else is wrong; Danny’s smile drops from his face, the creases at the corner of his eyes replaced with a worried frown. “Danno?”

“Steve, you got shot.”

“I remember,” he nods.

“The bullet nicked your brachial artery and you almost bled out in the plane. There wasn’t any time for first aid. You took off, set the navigation for Honolulu International, explained how to slow down then passed out”

“Okay,” Steve frowns. “I’m sorry you had to do that on your own?” He’s not sure why Danny is so upset. He wants to joke that he gets shot all the time but something tells him that it would be a bad idea to try for that levity right now. 

“Don’t apologise for… Fuck, Steve you nearly died. And you still might, okay? Don’t fucking joke about it!”

“Danny,” the doctor interrupts, pulling over an empty chair. “How about you let me…”

“No,” Danny cuts him off. “He always does this and it’s just… It’s different this time.” He looks back at Steve. “It wasn’t just your arm, Steve. You took one in the gut too and you were in surgery for hours.”

“Hey, Danno.” Steve soothes, “I’m here, partner. It’s okay.”

Danny shakes his head. He looks to the doctor, indicating he should take over explaining, as they planned.

Dr. Kalani pulls his chair closer. “Steve, this is going to be difficult to hear. During surgery to repair your stomach, we found the bullet lodged in your left kidney. The damage was substantial and it could not be repaired.”

“You mean,” Steve frowns. “It’s gone?” a thousand thoughts rush into his mind at once, and he’s kind of numb except for where he feels Danny’s hand slide back under his again, and squeeze hard.

“Yes,” the doctor nods. “We had to remove it. I’m so sorry to tell you this, Steve but there’s more.” 

“Just…” Danny sniffs and Steve looks over and realizes that his partner has tears in his eyes. “We’ve been the ones giving the bad news often enough. Just give it to him straight, like we talked about, okay?”

The doctor nods. 

“Danno?” Steve searches his friends face, his own clear with worry. “What’s going on?”

“Steve,” Dr. Kalani continues. “By the time you reached the hospital you had lost a lot of blood. This, coupled with the extra load from the traumatic damage to your left kidney caused too much stress on the right one and now it is not functioning properly.”

“Not functioning… like right now it’s not working?” Steve looks from his friend to the doctor and back again. “How much damage are we talking?”

“I realize this is a lot to take in, more so since you’re waking to this news from out of the blue. But it’s been almost a week of your body fighting hard. You had an extensive infection as well as a high fever which we are managing with antibiotics.”

“So when that goes away, then it will pick back up?” Steve holds onto his partner’s hand like it’s a lifeline. 

“At this point, I don’t want to give you false hope,” Dr Kalani says honestly. “The test we use to measure kidney function is called the glomerular filtration rate, or GFR. In someone your age and health it should be around 99. The higher the better.

“And I am guessing that I’m lower than that.”

“Steve,” Danny speaks for the first time since the doctor broke the news. “When we got here, you were already at 18. This morning, you’ve dropped to 15 and now you’re officially in acute kidney failure.”

“But I feel…” he breaks off when Danny glares. “Not fine. I wasn’t going to say fine!”

Danny rolls his eyes. “Sure.”

“But shouldn’t I be… sicker?”

Dr Kalani nods. “You might not feel it, but you are very sick, Steve. If you weren’t in the hospital you’d be dead. You’ve been on dialysis every day since you got here. Now, when the infection leaves your system completely we will look at dropping that back to every other day then going forward probably 3-4 times a week.”

“Dialysis? I’m hooked up to a machine?”

“Yes. It is doing the work your kidney can’t do any more. When you feel stronger, we can talk about treatment programs and options, make a longer term plan. There’s nothing more we can do until the infection is completely gone and you’re strong enough for another surgery. I am sorry, I know this is not what you want to hear.”

“But there are options?” Steve looks confused. “Something else to do instead of dialysis?”

“There’s really just one option, but like I said, we’ll talk about it when you’re stronger. I’ll check in on you in a couple of hours, okay?” He nods and walks out of the room to give the two friends some privacy.

“No.” Steve calls out and tries, but fails, to push himself up to sitting more. He groans as pain radiates up his whole torso and gasps for breath a few times until he feels Danny press a pillow to his gut and support his weight as he lays back down.

“Which part of ‘ _your kidney has been removed’_ did you not understand, you idiot?” he chastises. “Lie the hell still for once in your life and listen to the goddamned doctor.”

Steve glares. “I want to know what’s going to happen. What isn’t he telling me, Danny?” He knows full well that with a whole week up his sleeve, Danny’s been through every possible scenario and extracted a whole lot more information from the doctors than they’re used to giving. Not many can stand up to a Williams interrogation. 

“He made me promise not to stress you out.”

“Fuck that!” Steve throws his good arm in the air. “I’m stressed already, okay!” 

“I know,” Danny grabs Steve’s flailing hand and holds it tight, pulling it towards him and squeezing. He takes a breath and waits a beat before uttering the words that will change everything. “You need a kidney transplant, okay?”

“Oh.” The wind drops out of Steve’s fight and he lets Danny place his hand gently back down beside him. “I… I don’t know a lot about it, just stuff from Chin and his Auntie but…”

“I know, Babe,” he drops back into the chair and slides his hand back under Steve’s again.

“It’s really hard here. To get a transplant. On the islands I mean. There’re hundreds of people on the list. It nearly destroyed Chin’s life. His whole family.”

Danny swallows. “I know.”

“We need to call the Governor, make arrangements for Five-0. I will have to step back, with the schedule I’ll have to keep now.” Steve looks down at his hands and rolls the scratchy, well-washed cotton blanket between his thumb and forefinger. “I’ll probably be on dialysis for years.” 

“You won’t,” Danny reaches up but hesitates to brush away a tear that threatens to escape from Steve’s eye. He’s not even sure Steve realizes it is there but he long ago learnt to read his friend’s moods. He does it anyway. 

“You don’t know that. It could take years.” Steve, proving Danny’s thoughts right, leans away from the touch of his friend and Danny sighs. This is going to be harder than he thought. Oh who’s he kidding. Steve McGarrett is the most stubborn son of a bitch on the planet when he wants to be. But then again, so is he. 

“No,” Danny shakes his head, adamant. “It won’t. What, you think I sat around knitting for the last week?”

“I don’t…” 

“We’ve already done the typing tests and preliminary blood work and found a beautiful match. It certainly helps that you’re a universal recipient but I like to think it’s a little bit me.” 

Realisation dawns and Steve’s eyes widen. “No.”

“Oh yes,” Danny grins, “You might not live and breathe New Jersey like I do, but soon you’ll be peeing it.”

“I can’t let you do this, Danny,” he says firmly, shaking his head.

“What ‘let.’ You’re really going to try and stop me?”

Steve frowns at his friend. “I can’t… You have too much to take care of! Grace. Charlie. What if he gets sick again? What about our jobs? Can we even work with one kidney? Me, I guess I have no choice now, and I’ll get a new job if I have to, but, I can’t drag you into this.” 

Danny sees his friend’s heart rate monitor going up a little and doesn’t want the doctors rushing back in again. “Hey,” he squeezes Steve’s good bicep and looks him in the eyes. “I’ve had a week to think about this, remember? I’m a few steps ahead of you; I’ve started looking into things like work and leave and insurance. I know that you need time to process everything. We’ll talk more with the doctors later. I know you have questions. I have some of the answers but you need to trust me.”

“I do.”

“Trust me, okay?”

“I trust you, Danno.” Steve looks close to losing it and he breaks from Danny’s gaze, turning his face and body away as much as he can without pulling any of his stitches. 

Danny takes the hint. “I know.” He lets himself have a little something, leaning in and pressing his lips firmly to the top of his friend’s head, before slumping back into the chair. “We’ll talk when you’re ready, Babe.” 

Without really thinking, his hand finds its way back to its place under Steve’s. Danny marvels in its size and warmth, so glad that his friend is awake again to hold back. And he does, Danny realizes. Steve, face still turned away, squeezes hard when he feels Danny’s fingers snake between his own. It tells Danny that he’s aware, that he’s processing and working through the devastating news. It tells the detective that they’ll get through this. Together. 

* * *

_Eight days and one gunfight ago…_

_“Fuck, Steve, I’m almost out of ammo,” Danny slams in his last magazine and clambers into the cockpit of the plane. “We better make this fast!”_

_“You’re telling me to go fast?”_

_Danny leans under the windowish-door thing he just came through and fires one precious bullet at the hired muscle approaching around the wing. “Yes!”_

_“That’s a first,” Steve grunts heavily as he gets the engine started and the plane whirs to life. “Shut the door!”_

_Danny pauses for a moment, considering the mechanism before him._

_“Like the Delorian, Danno.” Steve shouts over the rising engine sound as he gets the propellers turning fast enough to make a getaway. “Pull it down, hard!”_

_“Right.” Danny grabs what looks like the handle and yanks as hard as he can, the ‘window’ slamming into place just as Steve starts to move the plane forward. Danny, still checking over his shoulder for more drug runners, drops into the second seat on the right hand side of Steve, and works out the seatbelt._

_It’s a tense thirty seconds or so, shooters continue firing at the small cargo plane as they speed down the grass runway and Danny feels the familiar swoop in his gut as they finally arc off the ground. This time it’s fuelled by adrenaline as well as physics._

_“That was close,” he checks out the window as ten or so of the shooters look helplessly after their cargo as it takes to the sky. “Fucking Barnes, the chicken shit. Five more minutes he had to hold out and we’d have been out clean. Let’s not do that again any time soon. What am I saying, you probably enjoyed every minute of it.”_

_“Danny.”_

_“Take me home, Jeeves,” Danny finally looks properly at his partner and frowns. Steve’s concentrating, sure that’s expected given the situation, but there’s something else. “Steve?”_

_“Danny, I’m hit.” Now that they’re safely airborne, he slumps back in the seat and Danny can see blood running down his partner’s left arm, gathering at his elbow and dripping onto his pant leg below. Worse, though, is the bloom of red that is spreading across Steve’s abdomen at an alarming rate._

_“Fuck, let me see.” Danny undoes the belt and looks into the area behind them where passenger seats would normally be. “I hope these bastards left a first aid kid on board when they were busy fitting the plane out to haul their cocaine.”_

_“Danny there isn’t time.”_

_“Can you at least let me look?” Danny shoves a few things around. “Let me look, okay?”_

_Steve snaps. “Danny. Sit back down. Now.” He shakes his head, dizzy with the tension in his muscles._

_“What?” Danny moves to sit._

_“Wait, put my headphones on for me. It’ll be easier than shouting over the engine,” Steve instructs and Danny carefully slides the earpiece into place before putting on his own._

_“We’re forty minutes out from Honolulu,” Steve starts. “I’m most likely not going to be able to hold out that long, Danny.”_

_“The fuck you won’t, Steven.” Danny’s voice wavers. “I’m not flying no damned plane back to Oahu.”_

_“No,” Steve agrees. “The autopilot will do that for you.”_

_“Okay then,”_

_“But it can’t land.”_

_“What.” And there’s the adrenaline back again._

_“Danny, you’re going to have to land if I’m unconscious.”_

_“Of all the… Fuck. This is not what I meant when I said you needed to let me drive more!”_

_“I know. Just. When we get closer, the tower at Honolulu International will ask you to identify yourself, tell them who we are and that you need to make an emergency landing. Someone will be able to talk you through it,” Steve explains as he punches in the necessary information to the navigation system. Thank god the drug runners were using decently advanced equipment._

_“Okay,” Danny looks at the various gauges and dials in front of him, aware that he has no idea what any of them do._

_As if he’s read his partner’s mind, Steve points quickly to one, before grabbing at the controls again, his left arm not strong enough to hold them on its own. “That one with the blue and brown shows you how level we are. When you land, be as straight as possible, okay?”_

_“Level. Got it.” Danny nods, “And this steers?”_

_“That’s the yoke. Pull back to raise the nose and go faster. Push forward to lower it and go slower. I’m going to hand over the controls to you to get a feel of it before I engage the autopilot, okay?”_

_“Okay,” Danny finds himself saying again, even though he really isn’t._

_“Slow and small adjustments, try and keep it smooth,” Steve coaches, his words coming in short bursts as he struggles to catch his breath. Danny continues to increase their altitude. A few minutes later he points to another dial. “This is the altimeter. The tower will talk you through landing, it will depend on wind speed and direction. The lever to lock the landing gear down is next to the yoke. Nose up slightly to land and the rest of the plane should follow. I know you can do this, Danno.”_

_“Ok, crash course in landing done, will you set the damned autopilot already and let me look at you?”_

_When Steve doesn’t answer, Danny glances sideways and sees his partner fading quickly._

_“Shit, Steve!” Danny shakes him gently until his eyes open groggily. “Set the autopilot, man. I can’t navigate!”_

_“S’done,” Steve slurs, pointing at the console between the two seats. “Switch up to…”_

_Danny sees a switch labeled AN ON, reaches out and activates the system. The feel of the plane changes under his hands so he lets go tentatively. The yoke holds its position and satisfied, he turns his attention back to Steve._

_“Okay let’s take a look,” Danny really doesn’t like how pale Steve’s getting. Now that he knows the plane’s somewhat taken care of, he’s let go of the controls and his hands lay limp beside him. The arm wound, that Danny now sees is in Steve’s bicep, is still bleeding a lot and he decides he needs to find something he can use as a tourniquet._

_After a couple of minutes fruitlessly looking around the converted cabin, he returns to Steve and reassesses. He needs pressure on those two wounds and fast. With a critical eye, Danny regards the headphones which are now slipping off Steve as he slumps to the side of his seat._

_“Right, well those aren’t any good to you when you’re unconscious,” Danny carefully pulls them off his friend’s ears and yanks the cable out of the control panel. He winds it around Steve’s arm above the bullet hole as tightly as he dares. He’ll check it’s not too tight in a couple of minutes._

_Next, Danny knows he needs to do something about the hole in Steve’s belly. He’s already lost so much blood, the seat belt is stained with it._

_“Wait,” Danny says, talking to Steve as if he could still hear him. “Let me just…” He repositions the belt a few inches and pulls it as tight as he can. The idea is good but it’s not quite tight enough. He presses Steve’s right hand over the hole in his left side, his arms over his middle and pulls the belt as hard as he can. A quick press and release of Steve’s thumbnail shows that there is still some blood getting to his extremity and that the tourniquet will hopefully not do more harm than good._

_Looking at his watch, Danny figures it’s been about twenty-five minutes since they took off so it shouldn’t be too long until the tower at Honolulu starts getting twitchy about an unscheduled plane approaching. He slides back into his seat and pulls the headset back on, checking that his own belt is secure and waits._

_It’s not long before a voice crackles over the airwaves, startling Danny after having the silent drone of the plane’s engines as his only company._

_**Aircraft N135PB. This is Honolulu Approach. Please identify yourself and state your intentions.**_

_“This is Detective Daniel Williams, Five-0 Taskforce. I need guidance to make an emergency landing.”_

_**Understood, Detective Williams. We were made aware that your team was running an operation and would be making an undercover approach through Honolulu Airspace. What is the nature of the emergency landing?**_

_“I have an officer down. We got made and they shot at us. A lot. Commander McGarrett is unconscious and I’ve never flown a plane before.”_

_**Message received. Stay on this frequency and we can talk you through this. My name is Sarah, I’ll stay with you, okay?**_

_“Hi Sarah. Sounds good,” Danny agrees. “Can you get the EMTs to meet us on the runway? And call my team, let them know.”_

_**Emergency Services and Five-0 will be standing by** Sarah assures him a few moments later. **Can you see land yet?**_

_“Just barely, on the horizon. But Steve set the autopilot for the airport before he passed out”_

_** You’re to the East of the airport, the autopilot should bank you left soon. It looks like you’re about five minutes out, Danny.**_

_“And the ambulance will be waiting?”_

_**Yes. Look, I know you’re worried about your partner but the best thing you can do for him is to get that plane down. Help will be waiting, I promise.**_

_“Okay. I’m holding level and…” Danny stops when he hears a loud, fast beeping sound in the cockpit. “Ah, I’ve got some kind of alarm going off here, I don’t know what it is.”_

_**I hear it,** Sarah confirms. **Danny are any of the controls lit up in front of you? You’re still on autopilot you can look down. I need you to check the fuel gauge.**_

_“There should be enough, the original flight planned was much further,” Danny says as he looks over the console._

_**The plane may have sustained damage in the shooting. Things can take a while to work loose.**_

_“Shit. I… Yeah, it’s the fuel.” Danny finds the offending gauge and blows out a breath. “It’s reading almost empty.”_

_**Okay. Change of plans then.**_

_“What?”_

_**You won’t make it to the airport, we need to find you somewhere closer.**_

_“Closer than the airport? It’s right on the water!”_

_**Danny there should be a screen about six inches square, on the console just slightly on the pilot’s side of centre, can you see it?**_

_“Yes.”_

_**Turn it on. It’s the GPS unit in the plane. I’m going to guide you but I think it might help you to have it to see.**_

_“Okay. I see land clearly now. Diamondhead is to the right. What now?”_

_**Now you’re up, Detective. Deactivate the autopilot. We’ll bring her down together, okay? You need to bear a little more East, towards Diamondhead.**_

_Danny makes the small adjustment._

_**Good. I’m going to have you landed in about two more minutes so I need you to really start to slow down. Do you know how to do that?**_

_“Nose down, slow and smooth,” Danny repeats what Steve told him. “The fuel is in the red now.”_

_** Okay, Danny. Just a little longer. Keep descending, your speed is dropping perfectly. Hold steady as you are and line up with the beach, try and come in straight**_

_“You’re kidding, right?”_

_**No. You won’t make it to Ala Moana park and there isn’t an open space closer. You’re going to make a hard landing, Danny, but it won’t be as bad in the sand as it would if you hit a tree.**_

_“Okay. No trees,” Danny agrees._

_**The sand is widest outside the Hilton, if it needs to, the plane might slide through to the lagoon. I’ve already redirected all available EMS and fire units to that location.**_

_“Okay.” Danny steadies himself, the beach growing larger rapidly as he approaches. He counts the time in his head and glances at the GPS screen. The green of land gets closer and closer to the little dot that is him and Steve._

_**Okay, pull the nose back up slightly, you’re going to land in about twenty seconds. I might lose you on impact but help is waiting.**_

_Danny quickly glances at his unconscious partner before bracing for the impact._

_With a lurch, the plane scrapes across the stretch of sand next to the Rainbow Tower, beach umbrellas flying. Surprisingly, the nose doesn’t dig too far into the sand and the plane comes to an abrupt stop just shy of the concrete path above the high tide line._

_Danny recovers from being thrown against the console, pulls off the headset and struggles out of his seatbelt to help Steve. The window pulls away from the fuselage and he’s never been more glad to see Lou’s face. Danny helps him, and Chin, get Steve out of his seat before clambering through after him._

_By the time his feet hit the sand, his teammates have Steve supported between them and are carrying him towards the edge of the beach where there are two ambulances waiting. The EMTs run out to meet them halfway, immediately adding their support to Chin and Lou as they hasten towards the closest bus._

_“Detective Williams,” a paramedic intercepts Danny as he follows quickly across the beach. “Are you injured?”_

_Danny shakes his head and shrugs her off him. “No. I’m fine. Steve…”_

_“They’ll take him to Queens.”_

_“Can I ride with him?” Danny directs his question to the EMTs who are applying a neck brace to Steve._

_The two paramedics share a look and Danny feels they’re about to turn him down._

_“I won’t get in the way. I’ll, hold something or whatever if you want. I just need…” Danny blows out a breath and watches as they start to push the gurney in. “I know it’s bad, okay. It’s bad. If he… I don’t want him to be…” He trails off, not daring to speak what he is thinking. They seem to understand though._

_“Get in,” one of them nods and holds a hand out to help him up the step._

_He looks up as the doors close and through the back window, sees the rest of his team huddled together as they process the severity of the situation. Danny knows that getting Steve back to the island is probably going to be the easiest part of his day._

* * * 

Steve doesn’t usually dream. Sure, he’s had nightmares after an op gone wrong, and he’s had his fair share of those over the years. But actual dreams, where his mind is meant to be sorting through his subconscious hopes and fears haven’t really been something that his brain does. So when he wakes up in his hospital bed, heart racing from telling Grace Williams that he’s very sorry but the bad guys got her Danno…

Well maybe it’s not a dream anyway, just one of the usual nightmares. 

“Uncle Steve?” 

He turns his head and realises that the voice he’s been hearing in his sleep was actually present. “Gracie?” he grunts. “You’re here?”

“Of course I’m here,” she smiles. It pulls at Steve’s heart just as much now as it did when he first met her, almost seven years ago. “They said you need to take some tablets now and I asked if I could be the one to wake you.” 

“I’m glad you were, Grace Face.” He lifts his head and looks around, this time he takes in more of the surroundings. The empty bed is still empty, that side of the room stark and bare compared to his. Over here, it kind of looks like the hotel gift shop had to relocate. The strings from at least a dozen foil balloons dance over the end of his bed and there are flowers on every surface not taken up by medical equipment. There is, however, one significant thing missing. 

“Where’s your dad?” 

“He’s getting us something to eat. He left me in charge.”

“Well that’s good,” Steve smiles at her. “I know I’m going to be fine if you’re in charge.”

“You will,” she nods and Steve breaks a little inside. If only she knew…

There’s a knock at the door and a nurse walks in, carrying a small tray. “Commander McGarrett I have your medication here and also some water.” 

He looks at the tiny, tiny cup which would meet carry on liquid regulations. He shoots a glance at Grace, worried. 

The nurse must see because as she comes closer she puts the tray on the bedside table and rests a hand on Grace’s shoulder. “Why don’t we give your uncle some privacy,” she suggests. “It can be hard to take pills so soon after surgery.”  
Grace opens her mouth to protest, but stops when she sees the pleading look on Steve’s face. She realises that he probably isn’t aware that he’s making it, it’s probably just another in the long-running list of Steve Faces that her Danno keeps. With everything that’s going on, and is yet to come, she figures she can step out and give him this tiny piece of privacy, if that’s what he wants. 

“Okay,” she nods and smoothes her palms on her jean shorts. “I’ll be just outside, okay?” she kisses him on the temple and leaves. Steve remembers a time when her face was level with his if he was laying in a hospital bed, but now she bends down. Standing, she’s almost taller than Danny. 

“Thanks,” Steve says to the nurse when he’s sure Grace is out of earshot. 

The nurse smiles. “No problem. I wasn’t lying though. It takes some people a while to get used to taking pills on so little water.” She holds up the small plastic cup with two white and two pale orange tablets. 

“My mouth’s so dry,” Steve sighs. “Do you have one of those…” he mimes the swabbing motion that Danny had performed for him the last time he was awake. “Might help to do that first.”

“Of course,” the nurse hands him the kidney dish from the bedside table and he sucks on the wet gauze until it feels warm in his mouth. “These aren’t so bad to take, really. Do them all at once, tip your head right back and use the water to wash them down,” she suggests. 

“Right.” Steve does as instructed, stretching his neck long as he feels the tablets, then blessed water slide down his throat. “Just like doing shots,” he grins.

“Without the hangover.”

“Right.” 

The nurse moves to the end of his bed and makes a few notes on the chart hanging there. “Do you want me to get Grace back now?”

Steve nods. “If that’s okay.”

“Of course!” she pats his foot comfortingly. “She’s been a delight to have around here this week.”

Steve realises then that the nurse had known Grace by name, as well as called him her uncle. 

As if reading his mind, the nurse continues, “She’s been up here almost as much as her dad. She comes most days after school. Sometimes there’s a little boy with them too. Charlie?”

Steve nods, a little shocked. That’s much more time with Danny than the custody schedule sets out, although he knows that now she’s a little older, Grace is given more freedom to be choosing where to go after school. And right now, it seems that she’s choosing to come and sit with him. Huh. 

“Anyway, I’ll send her back in and I’ll come check on you in a couple of hours, Commander.”

“Please,” he stops her. “Call me Steve. It seems you’re on a first name basis with everyone else.” 

“Sure, Steve,” she smiles. “See you later.”

He watches her go, sees shadows on the hall wall opposite the door as Grace stands and talks to the nurse for a moment before coming back. She slides her phone out of her pocket and checks the screen. 

“Danno wants to know if you want grape jello or strawberry.”

“Please tell him it’s okay, he doesn’t need to bring me anything to eat.”

Grace frowns. “But the doctor said you can. Because it’ll be easy on your stomach and might help you feel less thirsty.”

Steve genuinely doesn’t want to eat, he knows his body is being nourished by the delightful tube down his nose. He senses though that Grace will not give in and gets an idea. “What would you choose?” he asks.

“Grape,” she says, fingers flying as she texts that and god knows what else back to her father. A moment later the phone buzzes in her hands. “Danno says, ‘ _grape it is, but tell him he’s eating at least half of it before he lets you finish it’_.” She looks up, grinning. “So, change that to strawberry then?”

Steve nods, knowing he’s beaten. He’s struck by a lack of things to say to her, something that hasn’t happened for years. Even then it had only ever been truly awkward the first time he ‘babysat’ her when Danny was held up in court. He had quickly realized she was smart and that he should just talk to her like he would an adult and explain more if needed. 

Now, there’s this giant, one-sided elephant in the room that he refuses to bring up. Cheer season’s just starting up so maybe he can ask about that. Yeah. That’s good. Safe. He clears his throat and before he can ask a question, Grace is there with the kidney dish. 

“Is your mouth dry?” she offers him the clamp. “The doctor said you can do this as much as you want.”

“He did?” Steve wishes the doctor would come back when he’s awake and talk to him. 

She nods. “Uh huh. He said that you’ll probably be able to drink more in a couple of days but it will depend on…” she trails off at the look on Steve’s face. 

“Gracie,” he swallows hard, putting the gauze and clamp back in the dish and pushing it down beside his knee. 

“Yes?” she draws the word out long. 

“What do… I mean how much of…” He just can’t bring himself to ask, because what if the answer is nothing or he accidentally tells her something that freaks her out. Danny will kill him. For the same reason, he refuses to let her see how scared he is. 

“You mean how sick you really are?” she asks point blank and Steve knows she knows. 

He nods. “Yeah.” 

“Danno talked to me,” she lets out a long, slow breath. 

“Really?”

She nods. “He explained what was going on and asked me what I thought.  
You sound surprised.”

“Well, I am, a little,” Steve admits. “I know your father doesn’t like to lie to you but he usually holds back on the really bad stuff.”

“He did,” she agrees. “I mean he used to. But then when you came back from helping Catherine last time, your face was beat up so bad and I knew you’d been in Afghanistan… I kind of made some assumptions and he thought it was better I knew the truth than made up wild theories for myself.”

“Oh.”

“Even if I was right, that time,” she ends quietly, lowering her face.

Steve raises his arm as best he can and holds his hand out for her to take. “Hey, Gracie,” he waits until she looks at him. “The doctors are going to help me decide what to do. I don’t know what Danno has told you, but there are things I can do. I’ll be okay.” He assures her.

She nods. “I know you will. Danno explained everything. He said I could say no but I’d never… What?”

“Say no to what, exactly?” Steve looks away from her when he sees his partner in the doorway with his hands full of cafeteria food, strawberry jello perched precariously on top. 

“So, I think we need to talk,” Danny says as he sets the snacks down. “Grace?”

“I’ll go wait outside,” she offers. “Remember what I said, Danno.” She hugs her father, squeezing him tight, before leaving them alone.

“You’d better start explaining, Danny,” Steve growls. “What the hell have you been telling your daughter?”

* * * 

_Six days ago…_

_“Danny,” Rachel ushers her ex-husband inside, closing the door behind him. “How is Steve doing?”_

_“Thanks for letting me come over,” he runs his hands through his hair, still wet from the shower he took between the hospital and here._

_Rachel frowns, not missing the fact that he didn’t answer her question. “Danny I know we’ve had our differences, God knows I deserve you to freeze me completely out of anything that doesn’t directly involve Grace or Charlie. But you did call me.”_

_“I don’t want to get into that with you right now, okay?” Danny clenches and unclenches his fists, trying not to get worked up._

_“I just mean that even though I know I am far from being in your good graces,” she holds up a finger when he goes to cut her off, “And deservedly so, you can talk to me if you have nowhere else to go.”_

_“I need to talk to you about what’s going on because it involves me and therefore involves Charlie and Grace too.”_

_“What do you mean?”_

_“Can we, I don’t know, go sit somewhere?” he looks around, “I don’t really want to have this conversation with you standing next to a coat rack.”_

_“Of course. Come through, to the kitchen I think.” She chooses the least ostentatious room of the house, and the one closest to the coffee. It’s a strategic move. She remembers the long hours of sitting in a hospital for days on end. Coffee can never be close enough._

_After a few minutes fixing them drinks, Rachel sits at the head of the polished wooden table so she’s able to face Danny. She watches as he takes a long sip of his coffee, she knows it’s a stalling tactic but he clearly needs to gather himself._

_“Steve is…” his voice cracks so he stops. He refuses to cry in front of this woman who herself has caused so many of the tears he’s shed in the last seven years._

_“Danny, I know you’re never going to forgive me, but I think just now you need to try and set that aside and focus on what you came here to tell me.”_

_“Right. Okay.” The thing is, he hasn’t had to say the words out loud to anyone yet and he really, really doesn’t want to do it. It’s as if it makes it real as soon as he gives voice to it. But he knows he has to. “Steve was shot yesterday when we were working.”_

_“We saw the breaking news.”_

_“We?”_

_Rachel nods. “Charlie was watching Sesame Street when it broke in. He thought it was part of the show. I sent him to his room with the iPad, which he thought was the best thing ever. But then it took me ten minutes to convince Grace to wait for you to come to us. When you didn’t call last night, I almost confiscated her phone but eventually she promised not to call.”_

_“Shit,” he sags in the chair and shakes his head. “I lost my phone during the op,” he explains. “I had no idea she knew. I didn’t think to call, it was just so…”_

_“How bad is it, Danny?” Rachel makes a calculated decision and places a hand over his, trying to show support and also stop his cup ending up on the floor._

_“It’s exactly as bad as it looked. He took one to the arm and one to the gut. It destroyed one of his kidneys and they had to remove it.”_

_“Oh my god,” she actually wasn’t expecting something quite so… permanent._

_“It gets worse.”_

_“Go on.”_

_“He lost so much blood that his other kidney is pretty well fucked at this point. He’s unconscious still, a combination of the fever he has, drugs, and the sheer stress on his body. But he’s not going to regain kidney function so he either spends the rest of his life getting dialysis 4 times a week…”_

_“That will destroy him,” Rachel frowns. “Even I know Steve well enough to know that spending sixteen hours a week bound to a chair will…”_

_“I mean, he’s stubborn so he’s got that going for him,” Danny feels the need to defend his friend. “He’ll do whatever it takes, he always does. But there is another option.”_

_“A transplant,” she finishes mater of factly._

_Danny nods and wonders if she already realises where he’s going with this. Considering how they spent the first half of this year, he wouldn’t put it past her._

_“You’ve come to me because you’re a match and you want to talk to Grace before you do it.”_

_“How did you…”_

_“I was married to you for almost a decade, Danny,” Rachel shakes her head. “And I know you.”_

_“It’s not as big a deal as it used to be.”_

_“Of course it is!,” she throws up her hands. “You’re offering to give an un-replaceable part of your body to someone. It’s a very big, very important deal, Daniel.”_

_He looks at her, head to the side. “I actually can’t tell if you’re angry or not right now.”_

_“Or not,” she assures him. “Honestly, I’d be surprised if you didn’t want to. The way you offered for Charlie literally seconds after finding out…” She trails off. “Well, you know. And I said we wouldn’t talk about that today.”_

_“Well I don’t know anything for sure yet,” he decides to lat that particular topic slide too. “ We’ve got the tests started and I’m talking with the doctors and counselors that they make you see to make sure your head’s as viable as your organs.”_

_“When will you know?”_

_“Hopefully tomorrow? Steve’s a universal recipient blood type so we’re already ahead there. They have to make sure my health is good enough, obviously check that I do actually have two good kidneys not one good one and a dud.”_

_Rachel frowns. “Really?”_

_“Apparently it happens,” he nods. “More often than you’d expect. A family member wants to donate only to find out that they’ve had this thing going on their whole lives.”_

_“Well I’m sure you’ll be fine,” she pats his hand. “You’ve been in and out of the hospital so many times surely someone would have noticed if bits of you were missing.”_

_Danny actually smiles at her joke. “You’d hope so. Anyway. There’s nothing more to do until he’s awake and strong enough. But I want to talk to Grace. I don’ t need her permission, obviously, but I want her to know why I’m offering.”_

_“I understand,” Rachel picks up the empty coffee mugs from the table and stands. “She’ll be home from cheer practice in about half an hour. Let me make you something to eat and you can tell her before you go.”_

_“Really? That’d be good actually. I haven’t really had time for more than vending machine candy and chips.”_

_“Honestly, Danny. We got through Charlie and we’ll get through this. If you’re going to do this, you’ll be recovering for some weeks afterwards. We’re going to have to work together to make sure everything runs smoothly with the kids. If we shut them out of this…”_

_“They’ll be more scared,” he finishes. “I agree.”_

_“Right then. Why don’t you go and rest in Grace’s room whilst I make us some grilled cheese sandwiches for when she gets home.”_

_“Thanks, Rachel.” He says sincerely. “Really, I don’t know what I was expecting today.”_

_“Go and rest. I’ll send Grace up when she gets home,” Rachel promises, shooing her ex-husband out of the kitchen._

_* * *  
“Danno?” _

_He feels the bed dip and his arms automatically open for his daughter to crawl up next to him. She nestles her head in under his chin and he breathes in the scent of her shampoo: this month it’s coconut and something else he can’t identify._

_“Hey, Monkey,” he says, kissing the top of her head._

_“Mom said you wanted to talk to me,” she leans back a little and looks up at him, “About Uncle Steve.”_

_“Yeah,” Danny sighs. “You saw it on the news?”_

_Grace nods. “Uh huh. And someone put a video of the plane on YouTube. The kids at school couldn’t believe that was my dad.”_

_“You can show me later, okay?”_

_“Yup. Was it scary?”_

_“Very,” Danny sits up and leans against the wall, legs stretched across the width of the bed. Grace positions herself cross-legged beside him. “But I had no choice, y’know? You do what you’ve got to do.”_

_“He looked so floppy,” she says quietly. “Is Uncle Steve going to die?”_

_“I hope not,” Danny pulls her to him. “But he’s very, very sick right now.”_

_“From the plane crash?”_

_“No. From before that.” Danny’s been going back and forth all day about how much to tell Grace but after what happened last time Steve was badly injured, he decided that he can’t hide as much from her as he would like. “He got shot, pretty bad, and the doctors had to take one of his kidneys out. The other one isn’t working properly because of the injuries either.”_

_“So what happens now?” Grace feels the tears welling in her eyes but blinks them away. She needs to concentrate. She wants to understand. “Is it like in that movie Mom likes with Julia Roberts?”_

_Danny racks his brain but can’t think of the film. “I don’t know, Grace. There’s a machine cleaning Steve’s blood right now, it’s called having dialysis. But I don’t want him to do that for the rest of his life.”_

_“There was a kid in my class when I was little that had that. He missed so much school and he always had bruises and needle marks up his arms.”_

_“It’s really hard,” Danny agrees. “I don’t want that for Steve. I want him to have a life.”_

_“You want to give Uncle Steve one of your kidneys, don’t you, Danno.”_

_“Yeah, baby,” Danny holds her tight. “I do.”_

_Grace frowns. “Is it dangerous? For you I mean.”_

_“It’s an operation, so there’s always some danger from that,” Danny admits. “And there is a small chance that there might be other complications. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you before Steve wakes up. They’re already testing my blood to see if I’m a good match, I find out tomorrow.”_

_“So you might die, but really, probably not. And without it, Uncle Steve has to have the dialysis machine lots of times a week and he still might die anyway.”_

_“Uh,” Danny clears his throat at the succinct, yet terrifying way his daughter has laid the situation out. “Pretty much, yes.”_

_“What’s the other reason?” she asks, brushing tears from her eyes again._

_“What?”_

_Grace pulls back and looks up at him. “You said complications are one of the reasons you wanted to talk to me first. What are the others?”_

_“When did you get so smart, huh?”_

_“Dad,” she warns. “What. Is. It.”_

_Danny sighs. “I love you, you know that, right?”_

_Grace actually rolls her eyes at her father and any other time he’d call her out on it, but okay, yeah it was a pretty stupid thing to say. “You’ve only been ending every single conversation with ‘Danno loves you’ since before I can remember,” she reminds him._

_“Right. Well, I mean it, Grace. And now I have Charlie to love too. And when he was sick, I was so scared for him and more than happy to help him with some of my bone marrow.”_

_“And now he’s better,” Grace nods. “What’s that got to do with me?”_

_“Nothing.” Danny answers. “That’s the point. That was a pretty big deal, to do for him. And if I do this for Steve, well that’s a big deal to.”_

_“It’s kind of a huge deal, Dad. But you love him too.”_

_“I do. Very much. But I just don’t want you to feel like…”_

_“Like you wouldn’t do the same for me?” Grace suggests._

_Danny nods lamely. He almost feels like he worried for nothing now that she’s said it out loud, but at the same time he knows she’s been through a lot; First the divorce, then almost being a family again, finding out Charlie is her full sibling, and his illness. It’s a lot for a kid to get through._

_“Danno, you already gave me my huge thing,” she loses the battle not to cry and throws herself at her father. “You left Grandma and Pops and Uncle Matty and so, so many people and came all the way here, just for me. I was so happy when you finally got here, but I never even said thank you,” she cries into Danny’s chest and his hand comes up to stroke her hair._

_“Well of course I came, you’re my family, my baby girl,” his own eyes brim with tears now too. “I’d move a hundred times if it meant staying in your life.”_

_“But you didn’t, you wouldn’t let Mommy take me to Las Vegas. You wanted us to stay here.”_

_“Well, then I was…”_

_“No it’s good, Daddy, I didn’t want to go. My friends are here and so are yours.”_

_“They are,” he agrees, confused._

_“And Uncle Steve makes you happy. He’s your_ best _friend.”_

_Oh. Yeah okay. “Yes, baby he is. Probably the best friend I’ve ever had,” he shares._

_“He’s our family too, so we help him.” Grace nods and sits back up again, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “If the doctors say you’re good then you should do it.”_

_“You’re sure.”_

_“Positive,” Grace slides backwards off the bed and holds a hand out to help her father up. “I think you need to tell Uncle Steve though.”_

_Danny frowns. “Tell him what, Monkey?”_

_“That when you think about doing this, that it’s for family. The same to you as what you did for Charlie and me. The same as when you went to try to find Uncle Matt. I feel like he deserves to know that.”_

_“He knows that already,” Danny says._

_“Does he, though?” Grace levels him with a look that might have been cute a few years ago but now that she’s almost the same height as him is frankly intimidating. “Because after all this time, he still looks like we’re giving him some kind of offering every time we invite him to do something.”_

_“He’s just not used to…”_

_“It’s been six years, Dad. He’s still afraid or something, like he thinks it’s a dream and he’ll wake up and we’ll be gone.”_

_“How do you know all this, Grace?” Danny wonders. “Did Steve say something to you?”_

_“I have eyes. I’m not stupid. I see people. I see you and him every time after something bad happens. He needs to know that we’ve got his back and he’s never, ever going to be alone. You have to tell him.”_

_Danny can see she’s starting to get worked up so he grabs her by the hand and wraps his arms around her tight. “I will tell him, Grace. When he wakes up I’ll tell him we love him and we’ll do whatever it takes to get through this, okay?”_

_“Good.” She squeezes him hard for a moment before letting go. “Now, we have sandwiches to eat then I want to go to the hospital with you. Mom said it was okay.”_

_Danny drapes an arm across her shoulder and drops a kiss above her ear, “Whatever you need, Monkey.”_

* * * 

 

“So,” Danny says the instant the door closes behind his daughter, “You’ll be apologizing to Grace when she comes back later, just so you know.”

“If anyone is apologizing, it’s going to be you,” Steve snaps. “Using Grace to manipulate me like that. I don’t know what you’ve been saying and who you’ve been saying it to, but it stops now.”

“I…” Danny genuinely doesn’t have a response to that. 

“Who knows?”

“What?”

“Who have you told about what’s going on. With me.” Steve’s used to being pretty private, and he’ doesn’t think he likes everyone knowing this intimate business. 

“Hey, now….”

“Tell me, Daniel,” Steve cuts him off sharply. “And sit the fuck down, I don’t want to keep looking up at you.”

“Yeah?” Danny challenges, yet thumps down into the chair anyway, the vinyl letting out a rush of air. “I don’t know what the hell bent you out of shape, I was only gone for twenty damned minutes. God, Steve!”

Steve refuses to be distracted. “Does Mary know?”

“Yes.”

“Damnit, Danny!”

Danny slams his fist on the bed beside Steve’s hand. “Hey! I didn’t call her,” he growls. “Your _surgeon_ came to us in the waiting room and asked if we had contact information for your next of fucking kin. Do you know how that feels, Steve? To be sitting out there for _hours_ not knowing what the fuck was going on with you? You were busy, oh I don’t know, almost dying. Oh, and it was actually Kono who gave the hospital Mary’s details. I didn’t have my phone, it’s somewhere in Honolulu Harbour from where Diaz’s crew made us dump them before the op.”

“Still…”

“And,” Danny continues, not willing to stop now that he’s on a roll, “Lou and Chin know because they pulled your lifeless body from the plane, then sat in the waiting room. Duke knows because he coordinated the emergency response, then sat in the waiting room. Not to mention it was on the news from here to the East coast. My mother called, Steve. It’s on YouTube.”

“Shit,” Steve starts to feel the fight draining out of him but plays the one card he has left. “But Grace… Why tell her?”

“Babe, she already knew when I went to her. She, Charlie and Rachel saw it live when the news broke into goddamned Sesame Street.”

“What?” Steve chokes. If he had any colour, it would have drained from his face. 

“So actually, technically, I didn’t _tell_ anyone.”

“Fine.” Steve sighs. 

“And to answer your question, I talked to Grace because I wouldn’t do this without her blessing. 

“So you _have_ been making plans.”

”It’s all ready to go, Babe.” Danny decides to ignore the petulant tone in Steve’s voice. He’s obviously still blindsided by all of this. “As soon as you’re well enough.”

“That’s the thing, though, Danny. I don’t know what ‘it all’ is and I don’t know why we’re talking about… what you’re offering… when I don’t know all the options.” 

“Ok. I get that,” Danny shifts forward in the chair and grabs hold of Steve’s wrist, the hospital ID band crinkling under his palm. “I get it. I respect it. So much. I’m sorry if it seems like I’m trying to take over.”

“Thank you.”

“But Steve,” his voice drops. “There aren’t really ‘options’.”

“The doctor said…”

“I know. And…” Danny pauses. “I should stop. You’re right, you should talk to the doctor yourself.”

“No,” Steve sighs. “It’s fine. I said I trust you. I made you my emergency contact because you are just this involved. I knew if anything ever happened to me you’d nag the medical staff into submission on my behalf.” 

“Nag. Pftt.” Danny smiles weakly. “I prefer persistent. But yes. They’re on top of everything.”

“And so are you.”

“Yes.”

“So. Let me see if I have this right. This last week you flew a plane, landed it on Waikiki beach, and instead of recovering like a normal person would, you got yourself tested to see if you’re a good match to give me one of your kidneys. 

“That about sums it up,” Danny agrees. “Oh and I met with the governor and some woman from state human resources to find out our entitlements to leave.”

“I never actually read the insurance information when I signed my contract,” Steve admits.

“Well, to be fair, you were a little busy trying to catch an international arms dealer at the time,” Danny shrugs. “But don’t worry. There’s some details to iron out but it made me look through mine and assuming you’re equal to me or higher, you’re golden.”

“Okay then.” Steve nods firmly. 

Danny finds his thinking derailed by Steve’s certainty. “Huh?”

“Okay,” Steve repeats. “If you’re a match, if you’re _sure_ that this is what you want, we’ll do it.”

“If it’s what I… Steve, “ Danny finds himself drawn forward towards his partner. “The ‘option’ is this or watch you slowly die for the next decade. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not even a choice.”

“And Grace?”

“Babe, I’m pretty sure she’d be having herself tested for a match if she were four years older. In fact,” he remembers her reminder as she left the room. “She didn’t even question it, said that when you love somebody, that’s what you do.” 

“Aren’t you scared?” Steve whispers, like he wants to know but at the same time he’s hoping Danny won’t hear the question.

“I’m terrified,” Danny admits, “But I mean, we get shot at three days a week. And that’s a quiet one. I reconciled myself long ago with the idea of when it’s time it’s time. So, yes I am scared but not of this. I can’t even think about watching you slowly fade away waiting on some list. Or worse, hoping that some poor bastard wraps his car around a tree when you’re finally sick enough to be at the top of the list.”

“But it’s not your problem to fix.”

“Jesus, Steve,” Danny throws his hands in the air in frustration. “Okay, fine, I can’t do nothing, okay? If I sit around and you die when I could have helped, I will never, never be able to move on from that, okay? Maybe I’m just selfish. I don’t know. I fucking love you, you ginormous idiot, and I don’t want to have to find out how to live without your annoying face.”

“I feel the same though, Danny,” Steve ignores the insult, he knows his friend doesn’t mean it. “What if you get injured, or sick because you did this for me? What if a perp lands the right blow in the wrong place and you end up in this bed.”

“Well, I don’t think we’d both fit.”

“Danny. I’m serious man.” Steve chastises. “How do I live with that.”

“I don’t know,” Danny sighs. “Again, I don’t want to find out. Look, I know it’s not all rainbows and unicorns…Shut up,” he huffs when Steve raises a questioning eyebrow. “Grace says it okay.”

“Sure, Danno.”

“They’ve got people here for us to talk to, to help think about all the ’what ifs’ that we have. And to talk to for as long after as we need afterwards.”

“It’s a lot.”

“It is,” Danny agrees. “It’s so fucking much. Together, okay?”

“Yeah,” Steve holds out his hand and rests it on his partner’s cheek when he leans close. “Together.” 

Danny presses into the touch, relieved that they’re finally on the same page with this. They’re far from the end and he knows that as tired as he is, it’s mostly emotional. Steve’s all this as well as physically exhausted. “You should sleep,” he suggests. I’ll wake you up when the doctor comes, maybe see about getting you home in the next few days.”

“M’fine,” Steve mumbles, even as his eyes slide shut.

Danny chuckles. “That’s my Super Seal.” 

* * * 

Nine weeks later…  
“You need to go,” Danny sticks his head in the open door of Steve’s office.

Steve balances his cell phone between his ear and shoulder as he gathers up his wallet, keys and book. “I know,” he mouths back. “Mary, I’m heading over now. I’ll call you if there’s nobody else in, otherwise when I get home tonight, okay?” He nods while she replies. “I love you too, give Joan a kiss from me.”

“We’re almost done with booking Porter, we’ll get the intake paperwork started and then I’ll head over too.” Danny walks with Steve to the main Five-0 doors and they push through together. 

“Don’t forget we need more chicken now that Charlie’s coming tonight too.” 

“I know. We’ll stop at the store on the way to pick him up.”

“Malasadas too.”

Danny rolls his eyes. “You’re an animal,” he laughs at his partner. “Anyone would think that they took a kidney out of you and put a sweet tooth back in.”

“Just making sure that your kidney will be comfortable in its new home,” Steve grins. 

“You’re insane,” Danny punches him lightly on the bicep. Very lightly, what with the bruises and needle marks that already pepper Steve up and down both arms. “Get out of here or you’ll be late and the nurses will inevitably blame me. Again.”

As he watches Steve drive off in his truck, Danny’s overcome with more emotions than even he is used to expressing. He can’t believe how quickly they’ve fallen into this routine of theirs. It’s scarily domestic. Steve, of course, couldn’t be alone when he was discharged so Danny all but moved into the house on Pi’ikoi street to make sure his partner didn’t do something stupid like try to swim three miles the next day. 

Steve, however, has been a model patient. Despite the joking about the donuts (which are on the allowed treats list presented to Steve in the dialysis information), he’s followed every instruction to the letter, including a very strict diet. Sure he was a healthy eater before but he’s not used to having to keep track of specific vitamins and minerals. Some days he looks like he’d stab someone for a banana… 

With all this, and the emotional fallout that hits at the weirdest of times, it’s possibly the joking more than anything that’s kept everyone sane. Some of the jokes are cute, Grace has presented Steve with some that are seriously awful. Her personal favourites are the ones that involve urine. How she’d first stumbled upon them Danny doesn’t even want to know. When it’s just him and Steve however, they quickly slide down the scale of decency. 

When he was strong enough, Steve returned to work, staying in headquarters because his risk of infection is still high and they don’t want to take any chances. He’s been positive about it, saying it’s like a return to his Naval Intelligence days, running what he’s dubbed the Ops Centre from headquarters. It’s actually very efficient and he’s happy to be doing this over nothing at all. 

He works part time for now so he can take treatment most afternoons. Despite spending most of their time in the same house now, they bring separate cars so he can leave for Queens after lunch and then when he’s feeling too sick to drive home after, they leave the truck in the lot and Danny drives them. 

. . . 

“And then he decided that the only way to get the scorpion out was to take off his pants,” Steve grins. “When he dropped them he realized that it was hanging upside down over his…”

“Over his what, Uncle Steve?” Grace laughs as she approaches, backpack slung over her shoulder. 

“Um. Over his… belt buckle?” he suggests. “Soooo, how was school.”

“Subtle, Steven.” Danny shakes his head and gets up to bring Grace a chair over from an empty station at the end of the room. He sees why Steve prefers to come for his treatments in the afternoons rather than the mornings, it’s quieter for sure. They can usually chat without bothering anyone, or read whilst Grace does homework. 

“Oh hey, I found a new one today,” Grace sits in the chair and pulls out her cell. “Do you know any jokes about sodium?” She holds up her phone so they can see the picture that goes with the joke. “Na”.

“That’s,” Danny shakes his head, taking to his own seat again. “That’s truly terrible.”

“It’s science,” Steve grins. “Grace, did you hear that oxygen and potassium went on a date?”

She thinks for a few moments, working out the answer with a giggle. “I heard it went O K!” 

Danny scowls. “Stop corrupting my daughter, Steven.” 

“Mmm,” Steve smiles and leans back into the headrest. 

“Tired?” Danny’s change in mood is instant and he pulls the chair closer. 

“Just feeling a little sick. They said the first round after the drugs they started me on yesterday might be rough,” he admits. They decided on honesty when Grace was around, having discovered pretty quickly that half-truths just led to Google which led to panicked phone calls at three am. “You good to drive me home, Grace?”

“Don’t be silly,” she shakes her head. “Next year you can teach me to drive though.”

“No,” Danny scowls again. 

Steve ignores him. “I look forward to it, Grace Face.” He’s taken to thinking about the future a lot more now than he ever did before. Not what he might miss out on, but noticing all the things he has to look forward to. He’ll add teaching Grace evasive maneuvers to the list. It’s a list of things he will thank Danny for as he gets to do each one. 

“You want to sleep?” Danny asks. 

“No. Keep talking.”

“You’re almost there, babe.”

Steve feels Danny’s hand slide under his in a move of support that is so well practiced now that he’s sure the detective could do it in his sleep. 

“Still three hours,” Steve disagrees. 

Danny squeezes tighter. “Only one more week.”

Steve opens his eyes, looks at his partner and smiles. “Yeah.”

* * * 

Ten weeks later… 

“Pass the wings?” Danny holds out his plate towards Kono. 

“How many’s that now?” she grins, “Six?” 

Danny hrmphs. “Four, including this one,” he defends. “And people in glass houses shouldn’t throw edamame.”

“What?” Steve laughs, his mouth full of fried rice. “That doesn’t even make sense, Danny.”

“Whatever, it’s better than the food in this place,” he shrugs, “I’m just saying, we got the large and it’s almost gone, despite being next to her the whole time…” To make a point, he snags another wing when Kono is looking the other way, and bites into it triumphantly. “Nahale, why’re you looking so… disappointed?” 

He mumbles something in reply, slouching in his spot on the bed by Steve’s feet. 

Steve frowns. “What?” he asks when Grace begins snickering. 

“He was hoping for leftovers, Uncle Steve,” she explains. “For when Uncle Chin stays with him at the house.”

“Ah,” he nods. “I see the rumours of Chin’s cooking skills have reached you then?”

Kono snorts. “Don’t worry, we won’t let you starve while these two are in here. I promise.” Chin, smiling because it’s true of course, defends himself, claiming that they just don’t know good food. 

Mary and Grace are planning activities for Joan and Charlie to enjoy at the house, both of whom are currently curled up asleep bookending Danny’s lower legs on the bed. The two had become fast friends after meeting last week and have been keeping Mary on her toes. 

The group jabs at each other in good humour, enjoying the take out from one of their favourite hangouts. With Steve and Danny’s operations scheduled for 9am the next day, this will be the last big meal for either of them for a few days. As the end of visiting hours draws closer, the mood shifts, becoming more serious when Steve clears his throat and everyone senses that he wants to say something. 

He realizes that the whole room is looking at him and a blush creeps up his ears. “I just wanted to say thanks,” he explains. “For all the help. I know it’s not over yet but I wouldn’t be this far if you guys hadn’t all pitched in.”

“It’s _ohana_ ,” Chin shrugs. “What else is there to do?” Nods and murmurs of agreement confirm that whilst Danny and Steve might be the leads in this little drama of theirs, they’re all on the stage.

“Sounds very wise, Chin-Ho,” Danny nods. “And with that in mind, if someone can take my car to get serviced for me, that’d be… Ow!” he rubs at his arm where Kono just whacked him. 

“Sorry, my hand slipped,” she grins. 

Not long after, the night nurse comes to check on the patients and to remind everyone that visiting hours will be ending in twenty minutes. The group takes the hint and begins their goodbyes, one by one hugging their friends close and sharing best wishes for the morning. 

Nahele hesitates by Steve, not sure how to proceed. Steve can see his hesitation and holds his arms out, inviting the young man close. He senses that despite the confidence he projects, he is afraid for tomorrow, not only for Steve but for the impact that a bad outcome would have on his own life. 

“Hey,” Steve rubs his back. “You know the paperwork is all squared away, right?” He feels Nahele nod against his chest. “No matter what happens, you’re taken care of. You’ve got _ohana_ in these people. Whatever you need.”

“I know,” Nahele sits back up and clears his throat. 

“Just don’t let Danny eat too many malasadas, okay?” 

They talk quietly for a few more minutes, hugging once more before Nahele leaves to find Chin and Kono who are both staying at the house with him for the next few nights. 

Mary gently gathers Joan from the end of Danny’s bed and deposits her next to her uncle. The toddler stirs and nestles into Steve’s warmth and he wraps his arm around her.

“I never thought I’d see you like this,” she admits. “For some reason I had this idea that you’d be terrible with kids.”

Steve laughs. “I kind of was.” He shoots a look across the room to the quiet conversation on the other bed. “Grace taught me so much.”

“I know I don’t say it, but I’m so proud of you, Steve.” 

“Back at’cha. You’re a great mom and you never give up on what you want.”

“Well don’t you give up either,” she orders. “We’re not done with you yet.”

Steve laughs and Mary wraps her arms around the two most important people in her life and holds on tight.

In the next bed, Grace sits cross-legged by Danny’s hip, one hand on his knee and the other absently stroking through Charlie’s hair. Her phone buzzes and she checks, sighing when she reads the message.

“What is it?” Danny asks. 

“Just Mom letting me know she’s here,” Grace explains. “She said to meet her in the waiting area.”

“Message her back please,” Danny requests. “Ask her to come up here to get you.”

Grace types and sends the text before sliding the phone back into her pocket. “Oh, I almost forgot,” she unfolds her long legs and slides off the bed. The movement wakes her brother who rubs his eyes sleepily and crawls up to nestle in the crook of Danny’s arm. 

“I got presents!” Grace digs around in her bag and pulls out two small, square boxes and two homemade cards. 

“Uncle Steve?” she approaches the bed tentatively, reluctant to interrupt the brother and sister’s time.

“Yeah, Grace Face?” he smiles at her and she holds out one box and checks the cards before handing one over. “This is for you,” She hands the other set to her father. “Open them at the same time.”

“On the count of three?” Danny asks his partner who smiles at the flash of memories.

“One.”

“Two.”

“Three.”

They pull the lids off together and hold up identical plush toy kidneys. 

“Where did you find these?” Steve laughs, placing it in Joan’s hand when she reaches out to feel. 

“Online. Read the cards too. You first,” she points at her uncle. 

It features another kidney, obviously coloured by Charlie, adorned with Grace’s careful handwriting. “ _Urine my thoughts_ ,” he reads. “Oh my God that’s the worst one yet,” he laughs. 

“Yeah, no it isn’t,” Danny holds up his own card, which reminds him that from tomorrow onwards, ‘ _Urine Uncle Steve’s belly_.’

“Oh Monkey,” Danny’s voice cracks. “Come here.” He gathers her into his arms, and whispers into her hair. “I’m so proud of you. How you’ve handled all of this. I couldn’t have asked for more.” 

“I love you, Danno,” she whispers. 

“Danno loves you too,” he continues their life-long tradition. “Always.” He turns to Charlie. “Danno loves you too, Bud. Come here, let me give you a hug.” He holds the son he has only just gotten to know and spends a moment in awe that he’s responsible for the existence of these two people. 

Rachel finds her way to the room and spends a few moments talking with Danny, wishing him the best. Despite, or perhaps because of, the seriousness of the arrangements they’ve had to make in the last couple of months has gone a long way to repairing their fractured relationship. She hugs her ex-husband quickly, promising to have Grace and Charlie phone in the morning. They’d talked with Grace and decided the morning will be too busy with the final round of tests to talk properly, choosing instead to spend some special time together (nobody dares phrase it as ‘say goodbye’) after tonight’s party. 

Their timing is perfect, the farewells of the two families wrapping up as the nurse returns with medication for Steve. There is a final round of hugs and goodbyes then the room falls quiet. Danny feels the same, empty ache that he always does when he says goodbye to his children but as it has so many times over the years, Steve’s presence goes a way to dulling that. 

“I, uh,” Danny swings his legs off his bed and sits in one of the recently vacated chairs next to Steve’s. “I got you a present,” Danny points to the drawer in the bedside table. 

Steve reaches over and pulls the drawer open, seeing another box inside. It’s small and square with a dark blue ribbon tied neatly around it. Steve raises an eyebrow, confusion on his face.

“You got me a, ‘ _Do you, Steven, take this kidney_?’ gift?” he jokes. 

“Funny, funny man,” Danny swats him.

“I feel bad, I didn’t get you anything.”

“Eh,” Danny shrugs. “You’ve been a little busy. It’s just something I thought of a couple of weeks ago.” 

Steve takes the lid off the box, the ribbon falling to his lap. He carefully tips the contents onto his hand, a silver ball chain slides along his palm He sees a tag that has his name already engraved across the top line.

“I know you’ll be getting an official Navy tag for when you’re on reserve duty but you said you’d need to sign up for a civilian response service too. I got us the medical alert tags we looked at online,” Danny continues. “The hospital will help us register them with the company and enter all the information before we’re discharged.” 

“You got the waterproof one,” Steve says, running the chain through his fingers. 

“I figured it would co-ordinate with the fifty-seven pairs of cargo pants you own.”

“Yeah I can’t wait to see you rocking a dog tag, Danno,” Steve grins. 

The two continue talking, the back and forth that is one of the cornerstones of their friendship flows easily between them. It takes a cheeky scolding from the nurse, who reminds them that they’re not at Summer Camp here, to get them to retire to their beds and get the sleep they need before the big day they have coming.

The next morning, there’s hardly time to talk between all the different, last minute blood draws and pre-op procedures and the medical team running through the timing. Danny’s operation is to begin first as his laparoscopic surgery takes more time. 

When the nurses come to administer Danny’s sedatives, Steve makes them wait and walks over to his bed. 

“Come here,” he requests and when Danny stands, he pulls him into an embrace. 

“I’ll never be able to thank you enough for this, Danno,” he whispers, holding his best friend and partner tight. “I’m sorry I gave you a hard time at the beginning of this, but I’m going to spend the rest of my life showing you how fucking much I appreciate it.”

Danny shakes his head and pulls back so he can look Steve in the eye and be sure that his friend can see how serious he is. “You owe me nothing, you hear me?” He lifts his hands and places one on each of Steve’s cheeks, his palms warm against the other man’s stubble. “You’re not done yet, okay? You appreciate this for you. That’s all I ever need to see, understand?” 

“I love you,” Steve breathes, and Danny pulls him down again, resting their foreheads together. 

“I’ll see you when you wake up,” Danny promises, pressing a kiss to Steve’s cheek before releasing him and returning to his bed. 

“Okay,” he says to the nurse. “Give me the good stuff.”

 

Three weeks 

“Danny!” Steve shouts, digging through the trash bin under the kitchen sink, the contents of which is now strewn in an arc around him. At three weeks post surgery, he’s mostly mobile and the feeling in his gut is panic rather than pain. “Danny!”

“What?” the blond head appears through the door to the laundry nook where Danny is busy wrangling the bed sheets that Charlie wet during the night. 

“I can’t find my ledger,” Steve scoops the rubbish back into the bin before carefully standing. “It’s not on the top of the fridge.” They had to start keeping it up high after Charlie got his hands on it. They’d stopped him adding his personal, Crayola, touch in the nick of time.

“Shit,” Danny drops the lid of the washer closed and wipes his hands off on his shirt. “Where did you fill it in last night?”

“I weighed myself before we went to Chin’s, took my BP and temperature there then wrote it into the book when we were,” he snaps his fingers. “Watching the news for the report on Grace’s cheer team. Living room!” 

They hurry to check, stopping short when they see Charlie sitting cross legged at the coffee table, colouring book open in front of him and Steve’s Daily Ledger beside him.

“I find Uncle Steve’s special book under,’ he points at the couch behind him. “Charlie not draw in it,” he looks up from his colouring, his face serious. 

“Good boy, Charlie,” Danny ruffles his hair. “That’s lucky. Why were you looking there anyway?”

“My red car goed under. Wheel falled off again,” he holds the broken toy up to Steve who automatically takes it, clicks the wheel back into place and hands it back. 

“It must have slipped down somehow when I fell asleep here for a bit last night,” he drops onto the couch behind Charlie, kissing the top of his head. “Thanks, little detective,” he says sincerely. “You saved my butt!”

“Like my Danno,” Charlie grins at him upside down, leaning backwards into Steve’s shins. 

The two adults laugh at his response, neither sure if the boy is referring to the detective-ness or the butt saving. Either way, he’s right.

 

Six months

“Will you stop fidgeting,” Danny rolls his eyes. “You look fine.”

“It’s not comfortable,” Steve whines, tugging at the waist band of his favourite cargo pants.

Danny surveys his friend’s outfit. “So, you gained a few pounds. They said this might happen on the prednisone.” 

“But why now, it’s been so long and the side effects have been better than they warned about.”

“It could be worse, you could have the hair loss instead.”

Steve shudders. “It’s not fair.”

Danny can’t take it any more. “Okay, Grace,” he says. “Oh wait, you’re not my teenage daughter. Your pants are fine. You want to be late for your six-month assessment, fine. But I’m leaving.” He twirls the Camaro keys around his index finger, counting down the seconds in his head until Steve ninjas them away. 

Right on cue, he plucks them from mid air and stalks out the door, leaving Danny to lock up. Steve walks past the car to check the mailbox, pushing unlock on the remote so Danny can get in. When Steve gets back, he leans down to adjust the seat from Danny’s position closer to the wheel but then as he slides into the seat, he freezes at the sound of an almighty rip. 

“Did your…” Danny bursts out laughing.

“Shut up.”

“Oh my God” 

Steve scowls. 

“You ripped your pants.”

“They were well worn,” he defends.

Steve ignores the cackling and hauls himself back out of the car to go change. 

“Seriously?” he hears Danny call out and turns to see his head sticking out the car window. “You were going to the hospital commando?”

“Stop looking at my ass!” Steve yells, stomping back into the house and slamming the front door on the sound of Danny gasping for breath.

 

Seven months

“ _Mele Kalikimaka, Grace Face.”_

_“Mele Kalikimaka, Uncle Steve.”_

Danny clears his throat pointedly. 

_“Yeah yeah,” Steve laughs, coughing a little. “English in your house. I remember. Merry Christmas...”_

“Thank you.”

“ _…Danno.”_

‘Oh for goodness…”

“Danno,” Grace wheedles. 

“Oh fine,” he sighs dramatically. “Mele Kalikimaka, Steven.”

_Steve grins widely. “I’ll see you guys in a few days, okay?”_

“For New Years,” Grace nods. “Love you, Uncle Steve!”

_“Love you back, Gracie. You too, Danno,”_

“Get lots of rest, okay? And if your fever gets any higher go straight to Queens and have them…”

_“Danny, stop. It’s not that bad. Really.” Steve assures him. “Watch a movie with your daughter and I’ll see you soon, okay?”_

“Okay. Merry Christmas,” Danny says again. “Love you.”

When Steve disappears from the screen, Grace quits the Skype app, closes the lid of her laptop and leans back into the crook of Danny’s arm. She looks around their house, empty and honestly pretty dusty considering how little time they’ve spent here the last few months. 

“This really, really sucks.”

“I know, Grace,’ Danny agrees. 

“I feel so guilty.” 

“It’s not your fault,” he sooths, running a hand up and down her back. “You didn’t know Kally had a cold.”

“She shouldn’t have been at school,” Grace scowls, angry at her classmate who had gone in to take a test the previous week even though she was sick and infected half of her homeroom. Grace caught it off her but didn’t realize right away because she already had a hoarse voice from a cheer competition. 

“Most people don’t realize. They’ve got things to do and probably haven’t got friends or family on immunosuppressant medication. Think about what we wouldn’t know if it weren’t for Steve.” They’ve all become so diligent with the most basic of hygiene practices which most people don’t bother with. 

“Yeah well. She made me make Uncle Steve sick and that’s not okay.”

“No, it isn’t.” Although he knows they can’t wrap Steve in cotton wool for the rest of his life, Danny agrees with his daughter. It’s partly because she’s right and partly because she’s gearing up for a full blown Williams rant. “But he’s not even that sick. You heard him, he’s been watching Die Hard movies all day. And he has Nahele and Chin looking out for him until we aren’t contagious anymore. He’ll be fine.”

“We should be there,” Grace sniffs a couple of times before deciding that she needs to blow her nose. She gets up when she’s done and disappears into the bathroom for a few moments, Danny hears the water running and Grace returns. 

“What?” she asks, stopping in the middle of the room at her father’s look. 

“Oh, Monkey. It is so not your fault Steve got sick.”

“Yes it is.”

“No. It just happens. Look at what you just did. How many other fifteen year olds get up to wash their hands every time they blow their nose?”

“Huh.” 

“You know what,” Danny turns on the TV and navigates through the on demand menu to the featured Christmas movies. “Log back in again. We’re going to call Steve back and watch the movie together. He’s never seen “ _It’s a Wonderful Life_ ” you know.”

“No,” Grace feigns horror. “How has he managed all this time?”

In the end the three of them fall asleep on their respective couches halfway through the movie, the light from the TV flickering across their faces. Nobody thinks to end the Skype call when they start to get tired. When midnight passes, the houses are quiet except for the drone of the film and the computer speakers sending the sounds of congested snores. 

 

One year

“Are you sure this is safe?” Danny frowns at the shop front as if it is personally offending him. 

Steve sighs. “Stop worrying, and eat the malasadas so you don’t pass out.”

“But I read…”

Steve cuts him off. “I read too, Danno. And I talked to the doctors. And I asked around a bunch of people I trust for this and they all said that Ricky is the guy to go to.”

“You don’t have to do this.”

“I know,” Steve pulls open the door and waits pointedly until Danny sighs and walks in. “But you’re going back to your place soon, so I want to.”

“Fine. But if you get an infection, you’re on your own.”

“No I’m not.”

“No,” Danny scowls. “You’re not.” He hopes the ‘fuck you’ is implied in his tone. 

“Steve, hey!” the tattoo artist, a large Samoan, greets the friend of his friend with an enthusiastic bro-hug. “And you must be Danny.”

“Everything he’s said is an outright lie,” Danny holds out his hand for shaking, to try and avoid the bone-crushing hug. It doesn’t work. 

“Only good things, brah,” Ricky smiles, releasing his new client. “Only good things. So, who’s first?”

Steve raises his hand, “That would be me.”

“Right then,” Ricky indicates the black padded table in the back of the shop. “I’ve sterilized everything in the autoclave,” he seems to sense Danny’s tension. He’s probably not the first nervous customer but for a less usual reason. 

“New ink and needles?” Danny questions. 

“Danny, don’t be rude,” Steve warns. 

Ricky claps him on the back. “It’s okay. He’s worried. I understand. It’s cute.” He turns to address Danny. “I always use new needles and fresh ink anyway. I’m the best, Danny and there’s a reason why.” It’s not said in pride but a simple stating of fact. 

“Okay then,” Danny nods as Steve lies back on the table and pulls up his polo shirt. 

His stomach, trimming back down now that the doctors have found what they hope will be a long-term dose of the immunosuppressant, is peppered with scars from the last year. Some are small, some large. “I want it here,” he points beside the largest scar, the one that that started it all. It’s on his left side where the doctors removed his first kidney and stopped the internal bleeding from the bullet. 

Half an hour later, he’s done and it’s Danny’s turn. His laparoscopy scars are considerably smaller but he’s chosen the one highest on the left, nearest his heart. Steve had laughed fondly at the sentiment, before dragging his surly friend into a hug. 

“I never thought I’d see the day,” Danny says as they stand side by side later that night, looking at their almost identical new ink in Steve’s bathroom mirror, “When I’d have your name tattooed on my chest.” He runs a gentle finger across the green ribbon, Steve’s name curling across the top. 

Steve grins. “You think that’s weird? Try having someone else’s fucking kidney inside of you and then come talk to me.”

“I still can’t believe you put Danno,” Danny scowls. 

“Admit it, you love it,’ Steve teases. “Anyway, it could be worse, I could have added ‘urine my belly’.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Urine my thoughts,” Steve ponders, yelping when Danny swats him on the arm.

“Oh my God, stop.”

Steve turns his attention to applying antiseptic cream to the new tattoo. “Never.”

 _That’s the plan_ , Danny thinks. “Hey Steve?” he says.

“Yeah?” Steve looks up, brow crinkled in concentration. Their eyes meet in the mirror. 

“Thanks for letting me do this.”

Steve knows he doesn’t mean the new tattoos. 

“Yeah. But let’s not do it again, okay?” he smiles. 

Danny grins back. “I’m glad urine my life.”


End file.
